Tuesday, February 16, 2016

Mr. X and Kabuki @ the Instruments

There is something alluring and mysterious about Kabuki, that is, in a nutshell, classical Japanese dance -drama known for the elaborate makeup worn by some of the performers and for the drama. It is believed that the verb kabuku means to lean or to be out of the ordinary, so in many ways, kabuki can be interpreted as avant garde theater...and anyone who has seen a live performance knows this artform borders on bizarre theatre...in the most interesting way.

At the February round of the Instruments, I was so excited to see Kabuki Face Paint by Oceane. Traditionally, the makeup is applied heavily to create a brightly painted mask of pure white. The mask then uses colors in symbolic ways to indicate age, gender, and class of each character, as well as their moods and personalities. This set comes with six dramatic makeup options.

The white coat of make up is called oshiroi, and is made of rice powder that covers the entire face. The white face creates a dramatic look onstage and many historians believe that the white faces were used because they could best seen on the stage before electricity.

For supernatural heroes and villains, there is a special style of makeup called Kumadori. The most commonly used colors are dark red that represents anger, passion or cruelty, dark blue that represents sadness, pink representing youth, light blue or green representing calm, brown for selfishness and black for fear. There are over 100 different mask styles of kumadori makeup.

I have paired this with the beautiful new gown by Jumo called Khan. The multi-colored Khan gown has bell like kimono sleeves accentuated by flowing flexi prims and a sexy deep cut up the front of the dress. Khan comes with an asian style necklace, earrings and gorgeous headpiece that will make you feel like a geisha. Khan also comes in red, black, royal and red.

As for the poses, they can also be found at the Instruments, they are called Kabuki My Love of course and have been created by InMotion, this set comes with six delightful poses.